There is nothing that makes me say "Awww" faster than baby toes. Most days I just want to kiss my sons' feet, even the feet that no longer fit any reasonable toddler shoes. I tickled and kissed my toddler's plump toes as he rolled around on his bed when I came to get him this morning. A ray of sunshine shone on his fat foot. It highlighted the tiny white scars on his heels. Scars from the slices of an infant lancet, a necessary evil in the NICU for testing his blood each day when his thin veins wouldn't bleed enough. There seem to be too many scars for such a short NICU stay. I've seen preemies who had so many heelsticks done that they walked on their toes years later because the scar tissue was uncomfortable. I remember how swollen and bruised my son's heels looked for weeks after he came home from the hospital. I know Vincent walks on his toes when he is tired, a coincidence probably, yet I worry that I caused him this extra pain. I had the rotten uterus that refused to carry him long enough, it must be MY fault, you see?
Then I remember the IV sites, especially the one on his head. They shaved a tiny spot of hair, the site didn't last long and it left a white bump that was still there months later. I remember the day they did an arterial stick in the crook of his arm, after chasing us away from his bedside to do “tests” and how my cheeks burned when I finally was allowed back to his bedside after 3 hours of torturous waiting. Why did he need to be poked 7 times with a needle?? When it was my job* to start IVs on preemies, I never stuck them more than twice without consulting the doctor in charge. The integrity of their veins was too valuable, if I couldn't get access we needed to plan for the next step. Sticking an artery is not only a last resort (the higher pressure of blood flow makes it more likely to give up a lot of blood samples) but it has more risks (clots or inflammation can cause spasms and damage the circulation) and a LOT more pain. Arteries are deeper under the skin, more muscular and harder to puncture and they tend to be very close to nerves. On a small baby every drop of blood sampled is hard to replace so the tests need to be planned and spaced out over time to avoid needing transfusions or wasting that vein for a future IV placement. I was enraged and screamed at every NICU resident in earshot about how many times they stuck my baby for excessive blood tests... it was unnecessary and cruel. And worst of all I was shut out, prevented from protecting him, because the bedside nurse sent us away and refused to let us back in until their gory task was complete.
Over a year later when we were in the hospital having our second son, I asked the pediatrician to look up the blood test results from that awful day. After all the drama from that arterial stick, we never got the results of the special tests that required so much blood. The hospital records are all computerized now and the pediatrician had no problem finding the results for us. The defective gene for blood clotting, part of what complicated my pregnancy and required me to give myself shots every day, is present in my precious son. He carries the Factor V Leiden trait just like I do. Yeah, that made my mommy guilt much worse! The tests in NICU were to see if he might have had a stroke before birth, a clot in his brain or some other neurological damage that would explain why he occasionally stopped breathing and turned blue. The Neonatologists decided that his apnea and bradycardia (and poor sucking, slow weight gain and terrible reflux) were just preemie problems that he would grow out of and his brain was fine. No damage. No worries about his future development. Yet here is the test result that shows he does have a higher risk of stroke or blood clots in his lifetime. I smiled weakly and thanked the pediatrician for following up for us.
My son also inherited my fat feet. I always looked at them as God's gift to swimmers: natural paddles to propel me through the water. I love being immersed in water, I dream about swimming like a dolphin. My extra wide, practically SQUARE feet seem to help me in the open ocean. I'll accept the challenge of finding short, wide, fashionable shoes in exchange. I'll have to pay a little extra for my son's shoes too, but it's worth it.
As the morning sun moved across my son's wide, scarred foot I stepped back and realized what he was doing. While playing on his bed he pulled out a shape sorting toy, a big elephant with holes for different colored blocks to fit through,
and he correctly said the word “elephant” along with naming all the colors. He even picked out the correct shapes when prompted, except for the hexagon but who puts
those on a toy for toddlers anyway? I need to stop worrying about his brain. He certainly seems fine despite his dramatic first weeks of life. I'm working on being fine despite the birth traumas from both of my boys. The journey from enduring NICU procedures to chatting about shapes and colors has been worth every memorable step.
*our second journey through NICU was entirely different: when Richard needed an IV, his nurse offered to let me start the IV myself (?!?) plus I was allowed to stay at the bedside the entire time no matter what procedures they were doing. Either they remembered me from my rants from 17 months earlier or those particular nurses had a more laid back attitude.
